


No Man Knows My History

by Sangerin



Category: A Prairie Home Companion (2006)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-29
Updated: 2007-03-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 10:02:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/Sangerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only Yolanda knows my secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Man Knows My History

I was twenty-six when Yolanda got married. My baby sister, the last of the long line but me, finally grown up and married the way a Johnson Sister should be. I had to be Maid of Honour, because I was the only one left. But we’d always been close, Yolanda and I, so I don’t think she minded too much. It was a beautiful wedding.

We never had much of a break while we were still doing the act. We were regulars on A Prairie Home Companion, of course – regular enough to have our own dressing room at the Fitzgerald. And then we’d get booked in to sing at Church Suppers, School Board meetings, and VFWs all over Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota. Once or twice a year we’d go all the way up to International Falls, although never in the wintertime. I don’t know why anyone lives in International Falls in the wintertime. Too damn cold if you ask me.

All that travelling, though, gets to wearing a person out. Then Yolanda got pregnant with Lola, and the Johnson girls went on maternity leave for two whole years. I tell you, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. Oh, I stayed close to Yolanda, she needed help with her new baby once Lola made her appearance, and that man of Yolanda’s wasn’t much help. Takes a woman to raise a baby, or so he thought. But while Yolanda was living in a little house she found in Harris, I was only an hour or so down the road in the Twin Cities.

Only Yolanda knows my secret.

I’d always known I wasn’t cut out for marriage and baby-making. Growing up when and where I did, it took me a while to realise quite why that was. But for those two years, with Yolanda in Harris and the Johnson Gals on maternity leave, I discovered parts of the Twin Cities I’d never known existed, and learned a lot about myself, too.

Now, don’t go thinking I went crazy, or anything. I’m a good Lutheran girl from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Us Oskhosh girls don’t go wild. But it was halfway through those two years when I met Susan, and by the end of the two years I knew that I didn’t want to let her go. I was lucky, because Susan decided that she didn’t want to let me go, either.

I had to sit Yolanda down one day, when she was beginning to think about picking up the reins of the act again and see whether anyone out there would still want us to sing for them. I had to sit down with Yolanda, make sure that we weren’t going to be interrupted, and tell her that Susan was part of my life now, the way a husband would have been if I’d been that way inclined. She took it well, my innocent baby sister. Asked when she’d get to meet Susan, and only said once that it was lucky Ma and Pa were already dead and so didn’t have to deal with the news. That hurt, but I knew it was true. And Yolanda knew, without me even telling her, that I didn’t want this news to get to our other sisters, and that we couldn’t let it get to our audience. If they’d had problems with Connie and her donut, they’d have way more problems with me and my Susan.

It meant we had to change how we worked, of course. Sue and I got an apartment in St Paul, and instead of touring all summer like we used to, now we worked in a radius, with as many nights at home as we could manage. Yolanda gave up the place in Harris and moved to Maplewood. My life split in two: family and work on the one hand, and life with Susan on the other. It hasn’t been a comfortable way to live, but it’s what we have.

I’m tired of my life being a secret. In that part of my life that is family and work, I always say that only Yolanda knows my secret. It’s Yolanda that bridges the gap between my worlds, in my head, and yet that’s not entirely true. G.K. knows, and is sweet to Susan and me when he sees us together, and asks after her when we’re on the road. And Lola. Lola is from a different generation entirely, a generation that barely cares. She loves Susan, and bullies her the same way she bullies her mom and me. In her generation I guess that counts as true equality.

I’m just a well-behaved, well-brought up woman from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I sing beautiful old songs with my sister, and think about my poor Mama every night when I say my prayers. I spend part of every year on the road, singing sweetly to people who’d probably think I’m going to Hell, because I spend the other part of the year living with the love of my life, who’s a woman, just like me.


End file.
